Adrien Hallou

Dr Adrien Hallou

Herchel Smith Research Fellow

Email: ah691 @ cam.ac.uk
Wellcome Trust / CRUK Gurdon Institute,
Tennis Court Road,
Cambridge. CB2 1QN

and

TCM Group, Cavendish Laboratory
19 JJ Thomson Avenue,
Cambridge, CB3 0HE UK.

Research

Initially trained as a physicist and a chemist at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Paris, France), I developed my interest for quantitative approaches of biological systems during my MPhil and PhD in Biophysics at the University of Cambridge. I am now a Research Fellow at Darwin College and a Herchel Smith Research Fellow in the group of Professor Benjamin Simons, where my work combines theoretical methods from statistical and soft matter physics with wet lab biology experiments to understand the role of cellular heterogeneity in cell fate decision, pattern formation and tissue function during development, homeostasis and tumorogenesis.

In Plain English

My research focuses on the study of stem cells in epithelial tissues such as skin, oesophagus or intestine, using methods from both Physics and Biology in an interdisciplinary approach. My work has direct biomedical implications and contributes to a better understanding of embryonic development, tissue regeneration and tumour initiation.

Featured Publications

Different niches for stem cells carrying the same oncogenic driver affect pathogenesis and therapy response in myeloproliferative neoplasms E Grockowiak, C Korn, J Rak, V Lysenko, A Hallou et al., Nature Cancer (2023)
A magnetically actuated, optically sensed tensile testing method for mechanical characterization of soft biological tissues L Rosalia, A Hallou, L Cochrane and T Savin, Science Advances 9(2) eade2522 (2023)
Deep learning for bioimage analysis in developmental biology A Hallou, HG Yevick, B Dumitrascu and V Uhlmann, Development 148(18) dev199616 (2021)
A biomechanical switch regulates the transition towards homeostasis in oesophageal epithelium J McGinn, A Hallou, S Han et al., Nature Cell Biology 23 511 (2021)
On growth and force: mechanical forces in development A Hallou and T Brunet, Development 147(4) dev187302 (2020)
Theory of mechanochemical patterning in biphasic biological tissues P Recho, A Hallou and E Hannezo, PNAS 116(12) 5344 (2019)
Tumour heterogeneity promotes collective invasion and cancer metastatic dissemination A Hallou, J Jennings and AJ Kabla, R. Soc. Open Sci. 4 161007 (2017)